Articles tagged with ‘postcolonialism’

• Te Kupu

  Te Kupu is a founding member and MC of the Maori hip-hop crew Upper Hutt Posse, who have been on the scene in Aotearoa since 1988. Upper Hutt Posse have recorded hip-hop tracks in Maori language, and are a strong political voice for Maori cultural, linguistic and historical autonomy in New Zealand. They have toured Australia a number of times, performing with Indigenous crews in solidarity. Their most recent trip was in October 2007, when they played a gig at UTS with Aboriginal hip-hop artists in support of Australian Indigenous communities affected by the Australian Federal Government’s controversial intervention. We talked to Te Kupu before the gig, and he spoke about his rapumentary project, Know Your Links, in which he is filming hip-hop in twenty different countries, Maori language hip-hop, politics in Aotearoa and his wariness at the New Zealand ‘Kiwi’ identity.

  Tags: New Zealand, Aotearoa, Maori language, Maori hip-hop, postcolonialism, Maori culture, Interview Transcript, gangsta rap, politics, language, breakdancing, battling, MCing, multilingualism, Interviews